The history of cannabis and women’s health

There is a long but often untold story about cannabis and women’s health. On this International Women’s Day, we at CLN want to celebrate this history.

Women have always played an important role in medicine, held positions of authority and seen as service providers in society. For many healers, midwives and herbalists, cannabis has been one of the stars of their toolbox, used to treat patients, especially women, for a variety of ailments.

However, as perceptions of cannabis evolved over the centuries, many societies that once considered the plant central to their medicinal arsenal began to view it as somewhat taboo. Much of that healing power and knowledge has since wandered into the backlog of history.

So it’s not surprising that women play a central role in advocating cannabis and fighting to bring it back into the mainstream. Humans have used cannabis for thousands of years to treat nausea, pain, bloating, and other ailments related to female biology. Losing access to it has, of course, disproportionately affected individuals experiencing menstruation, childbirth, menopause and more.

As cannabis regains credibility in the medical world, we must not forget the history of cannabis and women’s health. We must recognize the role of women in cannabis cultivation, use and advocacy. With the flurry of recent cannabis reforms around the world, many assumed that men were more likely to use cannabis than women. However, new data suggests that women are in fact the fastest growing cannabis user base. This follows a long-established historical pattern of women using cannabis in their daily lives:

2300 BC – Mesopotamia

Photo by: Lei Mu

Ishtar is the Mesopotamian goddess of love, beauty, sex, war, justice and political power. Her followers associated her with the healing arts and burned the herb Sim.Ishara in her honor. Outside of religious rituals, many also used the herb as a remedy for a variety of ailments. Experts now suspect that this herb is cannabis.

1550 BC – Ancient Egypt

Photo by: British Library

The Ebers Papyrus is a medical papyrus that describes in detail herbal knowledge from ancient Egypt. It contains information on a variety of herbal remedies, including cannabis. Specifically, it mandated the use of cannabis for inflammation and menstrual cramps, as well as inserting the plant in ground form into the vagina as an aid to childbirth.

500 BC – Siberia

Photo by: Nikolay Tengerekov

The Princess of Ukok was a young woman who was found mummified and buried with cannabis near the Altai Mountains in Russia. Upon examining her remains, scientists determined that she suffered from breast cancer and used cannabis to help manage the pain.

5th to 15th centuries AD – Middle Ages Europe

Photo by: Gabriella Clare Marino

When cannabis was traded in Europe, healers began using the plant for a variety of obstetric and gynecological conditions, including as an aid in childbirth. Descriptions of the plant can be found in the Old English Herbarium, a document from around 1000 AD. The author recommends using cannabis mixed with lard to relieve swollen breasts. A 12th-century Benedictine abbess named Hildegard von Bingen also wrote about hemp in her book Physica, describing various uses of the plant. Many cannabis lovers today recognize her as one of the more prominent historical female advocates of cannabis.

19th Century AD – Queen Victoria

Photo by: K Mitch Hodge

Queen Victoria, who has been plagued by menstrual pain her entire life, is one of the most famous women in history to have used medicinal cannabis. She was given liquid concentrations of cannabis to help with the pain. According to her doctor, Sir J. Russell Reynolds, cannabis is “one of the most valuable medicines we possess”.

As the 20th century approached, cannabis became the scapegoat for society’s ills and the law cut off women’s access to this important resource. Women had to look for alternatives, which often brought with them a whole range of side effects. This is particularly sad considering that a natural solution has been around for millennia.

Thankfully, medicinal cannabis for women has regained traction, with a renaissance of female-owned companies bringing the plant back to prominence as a treatment for menstrual cramps, such as painful cramps, bloating, and abnormal bleeding. There have also been important developments in the use of cannabis to treat menopausal symptoms and certain complications associated with childbirth.

In fact, women have something of a love affair with cannabis. The history of cannabis is undeniably intertwined with women’s health, and it should come as no surprise that so is its future.